This particular walnut tree…maybe it’s in the latter stages of its life cycle. Which of those winter-bared branches is a widow maker? After a high wind, branches, thick branches, litter the ground. However, every year, so far, it produces a copious crop of walnuts. When I took the picture, it was early afternoon, but so clouded that it looked like dusk.
Sometimes we cannot use our current understanding of words to describe a past that we know mostly through the lens of a lying oppressor. My great-grandmother’s father was a Slave. Not once during our many conversations did she ever mention that word. Not once did she talk about that time. She talked about her father, but it was in the context of some of his life choices with which she disagreed. You see her father outlived his three or four wives, including her mother. Apparently he liked being married. The last wife was younger than my great-grandmother and she and her father argued about it until he ended the argument by hitting her over the head with his umbrella.
I would say most of us do not have stories about slavery passed through the generations. I have another Ancestor who despite living in a State where there was no legal recruitment traveled to a State where he could join the Union Army. (There was an agreement there would be no recruitment of Slaves in the border States that had not seceded.)
Which is to get to a video I saw that called the Slaves who did not flee or protest their condition cowards. What is a coward? We call people cowards who run from danger. But, like Doctor Who says, sometimes running is the only option to survive to fight another day. Is it being cowardly to persevere when open resistance will result in beating, mutilation, or death? Plenty of Slaves practiced subtle sabotage. They destroyed tools, slow-walked their labor, poisoned the oppressors. They were not cowards. They did what was necessary to survive a hopeless situation. And they did it because we humans always have hope. Don’t get me wrong…hope can kill. Don’t get me wrong…there were cowards. The biscuit eaters were true cowards. They had choice and chose to betray their fellow Slaves for the reward of the buttered biscuit. (I’ve written about them before.) The Slaves that didn’t protest because of brainwashing, because of ignorance, because they were exposed to no other way of living… We humans have a difficult time imagining that for which we have no reference point. It’s like the tribe that had never seen a masted sailing ship. Most could not see that thing that loomed offshore. They had no point of comparison, so their brain dismissed the thing as a mirage, an illusion, a dream that could be dismissed in the light of day. If you were limited to a plantation and knew nothing else, what exactly would you be protesting? Remember, the Enslaved were not permitted to read and the Bible they were exposed to supported their enslavement. How dare we judge them by today’s definition of words.
I don’t see my Ancestors as cowards, but as a hardy resilient group who survived despite the odds. They survived the transatlantic journey, they survived the most heinous form of Slavery for two hundred years, and then the terrorism of Jim Crow. Today, it appears that many of us have lost that resilience and will. We want things, we want to be white adjacent, we want not to be. I think our Ancestors would be ashamed of us and rightly so.
I’ve been reading The Atlantic‘s retrospective on Reconstruction. W.E.B. DuBois was the only Black professional invited to write an article when the original retrospective was published. “Ernest B. Kruttschnitt, the president of the convention, bluntly admitted the purpose of these laws. “What care I whether it be more or less ridiculous or not?” he said to applause. “Doesn’t it meet the case? Doesn’t it let the white man vote, and doesn’t it stop the negro from voting, and isn’t that what we came here for?”” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/12/reconstruction-education-black-students-public-schools/675816/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share White people have never cared how stupid their actions were as long as those actions hurt Black people. That mindset among white people is rampant today.
Have there been studies done on the effect of all those schools founded in the 1960s by white churches on the intellectual development of whites in the South? Aren’t we seeing the effects of that lack of factual education on the region today? I knew a teacher who lost students to those so-called schools in the 1990s. She happened to talk to one of them. The student was honest and said she learned nothing in her church sponsored school. She could barely read or do basic math. She said she slept through class and grades were given whether or not earned. As long as her parents paid tuition, she was passed. That’s the non-educated person one is dealing with in the South. If a thriving democracy depends on an educated thinking constituency, isn’t this democracy in trouble?
Jackson, MS…red state, ignorant population, pseudo-christians, stuck in Slavery and Jim Crow mindset, white terrorists…I have no positive thoughts about that State. A month or so ago a friend and I drove across Mississippi and there the landscape wasn’t even that attractive. I heard about the contaminated water in Jackson (still a problem), the capital, I heard about the white supremacists trying to place the Black population of Jackson under a white overlord (they called it courts, but only whites are eligible for the positions as the positions are appointed and white racist conservatives are the appointers). Now, over 200 bodies have been found buried behind the jail in Jackson. Probably a great many, if not all, are Black. This story came to light because a mother filed a police report as her son was missing. Turns out the son, per the police, had been hit by an off-duty policeman and then buried in a pauper’s grave behind the police station. When she persisted in contacting the police, after about eight months, the police finally admitted that her son had been killed by the policeman. The Jackson police department investigated and found no malicious intent. The mother had to pay $250 to remove her son from the pauper’s grave. This is 2024. What about homicide, negligent homicide…why isn’t the policeman who hit this man being charged? What about vehicular homicide?What about negligence in not following the rules pertaining to notifying the next of kin? They knew who he was. Per the coroner, the son’s ID was in his front pocket. I’m sure there are more laws that were broken in the handling of this case. The police should not be able to investigate their own actions and give themselves a pass.
But this is the type of state the Republicans want. This population in this type of State will not vote, are too ignorant to know what their best interests are, and are eager to blame Black people for their miserable plight. What did LBJ say…”If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Read the background of this quote at this site: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/ The whites living in the red states are emptying their pockets and getting absolutely nothing in return. I mean, what idiot sends a so-called billionaire money? Make it make some sense in the reality of 2024.
Some time ago, I saw a science fiction show and one of its storylines was the disappearance of Black men and women. Don’t remember the show’s name, but it turned out the Black people were being abducted and murdered for their organs. One of the comments to the video I watched said that in the second autopsy of the missing son his heart was missing, however, this commenter may have confused this story with an incident that happened in Alabama where a white prisoner was murdered and his heart was missing when the body was released to the family. What if that science fiction show has become a reality? However, there may be another more mundane explanation. Apparently, some coroners have contracted with the State’s medical school(s) to supply them with human organs, etc. I would think the coroner had no expectation that the family would pay for another autopsy, so any organs wouldn’t be missed.
In the past, I’ve called out folk for being an Uncle Tom. I’ve been rethinking that for the current crop of biscuit eaters. Uncle Tom didn’t know any better. Uncle Tom was doing his best to navigate a system in which he held no winning card. He was prohibited from learning to read and write, to be all that he could be, to be master of himself. So, should I defame Uncle Tom by attaching his name to the current day biscuit eaters who should know better? They are so much worse than Uncle Tom. The knowledge they need to do better is there for the taking, but they have refused the knowledge. They have refused the knowledge for their own selfish gain which usually translates to a pat on their bald head or dyed blonde hair.
Just saw a video of a Michigan state lawmaker who apparently does not believe in religious freedom. Seems like the Satanic Temple placed a Yule Goat on the Michigan Capitol’s grounds. A Republican legislator took issue with that exercise of freedom of religion and said something to the effect here is a statue to a satan that lies, kills, steals, and destroys. Obviously he doesn’t know the history of the group with which he identifies because it is a succinct description of their past and present. If one doesn’t want to live in a country where one of the foundations of the country is religious freedom, then leave. Don’t attempt to shove your pseudo-beliefs on to anyone else. Especially when those pseudo-beliefs are broadcast to control the “Other” and not yourself.
Kudos to the Ohio Grand Jury that did not indict a Black woman who miscarried. May karma stalk and harass the nurse who called the police when the woman, after multiple visits to the ER, returned after miscarrying. If the woman had received the proper care in her previous visits, she would not have been at home when she miscarried. I hope she sues, for there was no reason for the trauma that she has endured.
We’ve all heard the phrase “banned in Boston”. Now, some school districts in Florida are considering banning dictionaries and thesauri because of alleged sexual content. Is there no limit to the stupidity of some Floridians? Why don’t they just ban all books and have a mass book burning to further pollute the air. Maybe that will satisfy their authoritarian and pseudo-religious desires. And we Others will leave Florida to its self-created swamp. (Wish there was a way to stop federal dollars from flowing to Florida, especially FEMA. Insurance companies are already pulling out.) Because it can’t be repeated too many times…this is for you, not for them. (We’ve all seen the news about the Moms for Liberty (group that promotes the banning of books and anything that would inform them and their children of the world beyond their racist bubble), headquartered in Florida…threesomes, shoplifting…probably just the tip of the iceberg.)
This is supposedly a rich nation, but there is a hunger crisis, especially among children, in this rich nation. There is a government program created to feed these children during the summer months as sometimes the only food these food insecure children get is at school. Fifteen states decided not to apply. “The 15 states that did not apply are Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont and Wyoming.” Excerpt from: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/us/school-lunches-assistance-republicans.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NE0.9gLM.cpseIsxwB1oT&smid=url-share
How can these states say that their government is of, for, or by they people when they did not apply for available funds to feed hungry children? Apparently, ideology reigns supreme over the needs of the vulnerable. (However, a small number of the fifteen states did cite logistical concerns and may be open to participating in the future. And these are some of the States that approve of child labor and are changing the laws so that even younger children can work in dangerous jobs.) Why would you continue to vote for a party that has no compassion? That is hamstringing the next generation while exploiting them for current profit? I suppose in their mind, like a Texas politician once said (my interpretation of what I heard): sick and don’t have insurance…just die. His party colleagues appear to be saying…Don’t have food…just starve or, I suppose, ask for their thoughts and prayers while you beg. Dignity…there is no dignity for the vulnerable in this land of greed. Create those bootstraps from nothing and feed yourself! One can only wonder what verses of the Bible they spout to support their lack of compassion for their fellow citizens.
This is only the second week of the new year and the Israeli-Palestine conflict appears to be spreading to other countries in the Mideast. In the Southeast, a major snowstorm is expected. COVID and the flu are taking their toll. Before Christmas, I cleared the zinnias and scattered the dried seedheads. Hoping for another abundant crop of pop-ups this year!
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